1) Is the New Minimum Wage for Federal Employees $100,000?

Not quite, but a new study by OpenThe Books finds that the average pay exceeded $100,000 in 117 of 127 executive agencies and the White House. Not bad for government work.

In FY 2024, there were 31,450 federal employees who out-earned every governor of the 50 states. That includes the highest paid, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who collects a $250,000 salary.

Nearly 70,000 federal employees make more than $200,000, or two and a half times the median household income.  

Our advice to the head of the swamp: Donald Trump, keep draining.

2) Are CEOs Overpaid?

Bad ones are. But not the good ones:

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced his retirement at age 59 a little over a week ago. Walmart's stock fell by 3% on the move, a loss of $16 billion to shareholders.

Since taking over as CEO in 2014, McMillon presided over a 300% gain in Walmart stock, which we back-of-the-envelope estimate at well over $150 billion to the shareholders.

His annual salary and other benefits was a tiny fraction of that: $30 million. We’d say that’s one of the great bargains of all time.

Someone ask Elizabeth Warren whether he was overpaid.  

3) Stop the Trial Lawyer Tax on the Economy

Legal system abuse costs the U.S. economy and consumers an estimated $500 billion a year to defend against frivolous lawsuits.

That’s approximately 2 percent of the country's GDP.

Tort costs have exploded in recent years at an annual rate of 7.1%, more than twice the inflation rate.  

In the 1990s, Republicans KOed the trial lawyer sharks, but they’re back big time and now have even courted Republicans to do their bidding.

A big problem is the new scam called “THIRD-PARTY LITIGATION FUNDING” for lawsuits.

Here’s how it works:

Outside investors secretly bankroll lawsuits for profit. The investors, not the injured party, walk away with the bulk of the jackpot awards.

These lawsuit investment funds are growing rapidly and reached $2.3 billion in new financing agreements for 2024 and the total assets have grown to $16.1 billion.

These funds should be illegal - or at least transparent so defendants and the public know who the real economic interest suing is.

Our friend Rep. Darrell Isa has sponsored the Litigation Transparency Act of 2025, which would require disclosure of these agreements in federal civil cases.

Some conservative groups are worried this means they would have to disclose their donors.  Issa tells us that is absolutely not the case – donors don't receive compensation – and he is going to add more language to make this crystal clear.

We wrote last week that Florida, under Governor Ron DeSantis, has dramatically lowered insurance costs in his state in part due to curtailing frivolous lawsuits. The rest of the country should do the same.

4) Climate Billionaire Tom Steyer Wants to Be Governor of California

Is it possible that California could elect a worse governor than Gavin Newsom next year?  Newsom is term-limited and running for president.  

The field to replace him in Sacramento expanded this week with the news that Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer is entering the race from the far left. In his announcement video, the billionaire promises to make "corporations pay their fair share," and curb the "monopolistic power of utilities."

But we learned from Steyer's abortive run for president in 2020, the issue that really makes him tick is climate change hysteria.  

He promises that if elected he will "give Congress 100 days to pass a Green New Deal."

The former hedge fund manager is certainly willing to spend his loot to spread that message. During the 2016 election, Speyer spent tens of millions of dollars dooming about climate change.

In 2013, Rolling Stone dubbed him "Daddy Greenbucks" and quoted him saying of climate “deniers,” "The goal here is not to win. The goal is to destroy these people [climate change skeptics]." What a humanitarian!

Should Steyer spend his way into the governor's mansion he could turn the Golden State into the Blackout State.

5) Video of the Day: Kevin Hassett Perfectly Articulates Key HOTLINE Themes

Purchasing power has gone up. So real wages - that's W divided by P for our technical people of the audience - have gone up by about $1,200 this year. So the way to think about it is that we've dug a $3,000 hole because of Biden policies, and we've gained $1,200 on the way out already, which should give you a great deal of hope for the future that the wage increases that we're seeing will continue.

And even if inflation stays positive, make it so that people feel way better when they go to the grocery store and to buy a car... It's just astonishing to me that the cost problem is somehow being blamed on us.

Now, think about it, especially with the Obamacare thing. So Obamacare is 100% Democratic policy. It's always been 100% Democratic policy. What they did is they expanded the subsidies during COVID, and then all those subsidies basically went right into the pockets of insurance companies. And Obamacare insurance policies have doubled in price relative to normal policies. And so the fastest inflation in the economy is these big government subsidies thrown at Obamacare insurance.

Think about it, it's like if you give lots of student loans, then the tuition goes up. It's that effect. Now they're blaming President Trump for Obamacare as well. They should have fixed Obamacare in the first place. President Trump had a plan in the big, beautiful bill to give people some subsidies, but the Democrats didn't like it because the subsidies weren't going to campaign contributors, the insurance companies.

6) Trump Does What Joe Biden Never Could: He Has Stopped Hurricanes

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